“As always, we sit on the narrow steps that lead from the Old Bridge down to the sandbar. A pale silver moon trembles on the face of the water. A wooden boat lashed to a post modulates the sound of the current. Sitting with her, I feel her warm against my arm.”

“And we sit there, by its margin, while the moon, who loves it too, stoops down to kiss it with a sister’s kiss, and throws her silver arms around it clingingly.”

“Then, all but instinctively, I took her in my arms. Pressed against me, her whole body trembling, she continued to cry without a sound.”

“I think I'll go over and introduce myself to that little red-haired girl. I think I'll introduce myself, and then ask her to come over and sit next to me. I think I'll ask her to sit next to me here, and then I think I'll tell her how much I've always admired her... I think I'll flap my arms, and fly to the moon.”

“There was nothing new in sitting on this dock, on this or that wooden bench, watching for his boat to come. In some ways, she was always waiting for him.”

“...she imagines her body curled in the narrow monk's bed, knees to chin, her own irrefutable geography, but she sees the blood of her futile heart seeping out over her chest and arms and legs, flooding across the rough wooden floor, down the narrow wooden stairs and out into the old soil of the garden. No roses, no, she does not even ask to make roses, just dissolution; most any night she asks just for that.”